I purchased a pair of QS8s for my side surrounds and it's time to upgrade the rears. I am wondering if anyone can chime in as to whether or not it would be better to get direct firing bookshelf speakers for the rear or would it be better to get another pair of QS8s (or even just one)? Due to the limitations of the room, I would only be able to place them either two feet apart on the back wall (which is about 6 feet from the listening position) or have one on a partial wall 1.5 feet from the side wall and the other about 2.5 feet away from the back wall. Should they also be the same height as the side surrounds (which are 2 feet above ear and just slightly behind the sectional)? Anyway, I love my QS8s, but I am feeling inundated with the difference of opinion on setup of a 7.1 theater. Thanks in advance,

James, the 6' distance from the back wall is enough room to provide for a useful rear surround field. It's also enough to at least arguably allow a pair of small direct radiators such as the M2s to disperse sufficiently. If you like your QS8s now as side surrounds though, there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason not to also use them in back.

As far as positioning, yes they preferably would be about the same height as the side surrounds. A 2' separation wouldn't be enough to allow for both a left rear and right rear effect at the listening position. The positioning problem you mention isn't entirely clear, but a separation on the order of 6' or a little more would be desirable, if it could possibly be arranged.

I added a second pair of QS8s coming up on 2 years ago now. I love it, but if I could go back in time, I would toy with some direct radiating for my rears and leave the QS8s on the sides. For me, I have 2 rows of seats, and I sit in the front row, but the sound field is so enveloping (for the back row anyway) that I some times feel like I am not getting enough discrete sound from my rear 2 speakers. If I sit in the second row, it is great. I know, crank it up and "to heck" with the second row people... Maybe.

I am still super happy, don't get me wrong, but I just wonder some times...

I can say that nickbuol may have a point about discrete 7.1 and 4 Q8's. In my room, the surrounds and rears are not very far apart, but when something is supposed to come from one of the rears, you certainly have no problem hearing it that way, but unless I could swap out my M2's for Q8's I can't comment if the experience would be similar.

Yup. Don't get me wrong. For things that are what I call "crazy mixed in 7.1" you get GREAT spacial effects that have a massive sound field behind you. Those things are generally the DTS and Dolby "intros" in high def audio. Like the Dolby Bouncing Spheres Intro, you can hear every single ball independantly coming from behind and such, and of course the "All around you" whisper at the end is seamless with 4 QS8s.

So again, it isn't bad at all, but for regular mixed stuff like movies, the QS8s for rears tend to add more subtle effects than the sides. Maybe that is what they are supposed to be because I've "calibrated" both with the mic just at the front row seating positions as well as the front and back combined, and the end result seems the same from the front row. Maybe the back row is actually just getting too loud of an effect? Not sure.

Either way, I am very much happy with having 4 QS8s and won't be switching, but I will always wonder if a side by side comparison would have been nice.

(1) According to Dolby Surrounds should never be Direct Radiating because movie sound engineer mix then to be filler sound and atmosphere rather than percise and as such should only be bipole, dipole or quadrapole. (2) Surrounds should be placed with a Tweeter height of 2'-3' feet above the listeners ears at the Seated posistion.

Maybe, but others with dedicated theaters are messing around with side surrounds actually being slightly in front of the primary listening area instead of Dolby's recommendation of no further forward than 90 degrees to the side. A lot of people are finding that it actually creates a more enveloping sound field. A number of people are also finding that small "arrays" of direct radiating rear surrounds are better, but 1) who wants to buy all of that, 2) how much better is it?

I think that Dolby, DTS, and even THX models are still somewhat limited in that for more and more people, their standard layout models are designed for "smaller" rooms than what people have and with more of those people going with more than 1 row of seats, their models are no longer valid.

Still good guidelines, but with 2 rows of seats, getting the surround sound up to the front row is a challenge. Not sure that direct radiating would be better, but it would be worth trying had I thought of it in the past. Of course, then I would be potentially compromising the rear row of seats, but the heck with that. *I* sit in the front.

Your forgetting a major point which is what im describing is how its mixed in the studio. So your changes misrepresent the accuracy and intended placement of sounds being mixed. Changing these Fundimentals will often give you bad sound effects because your altering with sound reproduction. Stick with dolby and dts recommendations if you want accurate Surround Sound as intended by the director.